Report Finds Top Lawyer at State Public Defense Agency Retaliated Against Two Female Lawyers

The top lawyer at the state agency responsible for paying public defenders retaliated against two female lawyers after they voiced complaints about him and the agency, according to a report obtained by WW. The agency, the Oregon Public Defense Commission, has withheld the report since it was completed on Feb. 8, citing an ongoing investigation.

The lawyer, Eric Deitrick, remains listed as the agency’s general counsel on its website. “These are very serious findings,” ACLU Oregon executive director Sandy Chung says, and demands the agency explain why Deitrick has kept his job.

A spokeswoman for the agency, Lisa Taylor, would not say whether Deitrick had been disciplined. Deitrick did not respond to a request for comment.

The report was commissioned by the agency after the ACLU demanded an investigation in 2021 into gender discrimination within Oregon’s beleaguered public defense system, which faced high turnover during the pandemic and currently lacks sufficient lawyers to represent every indigent criminal defendant.

The agency brought in a respected outside investigator, Jill Goldsmith, who produced a pair of reports three years later. (Among the “obstacles” Goldsmith said she faced: The agency denied her access to records for 10 months.)

After all that, the agency released only one of the two reports to the public. That report found that although the agency had historically paid women less than men, the problem had largely disappeared in recent years.

OPDC did not release the second report, despite requests from both WW and the ACLU, because it dealt with a “personnel matter,” a spokesperson says.

The report was finally released to the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday. Here are its major findings:

• The Court of Appeals found that Deitrick’s decision to dock a lawyer’s pay by a third was “against reason and evidence.” Goldsmith went further, calling it retaliation for the lawyer’s previous public criticisms of the agency.
• Deitrick launched two separate investigations into a female lawyer “without informing her” and without an “official” complaint. He also made comments to two prospective employers. One refused to hire the lawyer as a result, but the second dismissed Deitrick’s concerns as “innuendo,” according to Goldsmith.
• Deitrick docked the pay of a female lawyer in retaliation for her outspoken criticism of him and the agency, Goldsmith found. Deitrick also wrote a “scathing and unfair” letter about her that was later sent to the Oregon State Bar.

Taylor, the OPDC spokeswoman, declined to comment on the findings. She did note, however, that the agency had created a new division for addressing complaints in 2021.

“OPDC has come a long way in adopting policies to increase transparency and accountability for attorney compensation,” she wrote.

The report does not name any of the women involved, but one was willing to speak with WW on condition of anonymity. She said the report’s conclusions were “validating” but that the agency hadn’t done enough to address Deitrick’s behavior.

“He needs to be fired,” she said.